We’ve now lost more due to inflation than the government gave out in the form of “free” money. It’s time to stop digging the hole and get back to fiscal sanity. Let’s fight back: https://t.co/pHGnpb7z9u pic.twitter.com/plQ0GYk630

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 24, 2022

I’ve traveled to every corner of the Commonwealth, and everywhere the message I receive from Kentuckians is the same. They’re worried about being able to afford to feed their families and fill their cars up with enough gas.

With rampant inflation, paychecks don’t have the same purchasing power, and there’s only one place to lay blame – the Biden Administration and Democrats’ Big Government agenda that has spent us into an economic disaster.

Help me fight the runaway spending that’s causing inflation and the Democrats’ plans to make it even worse.

Help my campaign today.

The post We’ve now lost more due to inflation than the government gave out in the form of ‘free’ money appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Inflation is affecting every single American and the President curses and personally insults a reporter for daring to ask about it. https://t.co/rMIZT4Z2ge

— Kelley Paul (@KelleyAshbyPaul) January 24, 2022

The post Inflation is affecting us all and Biden curses at reporter for asking about it appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Fox Business reports, “Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released a new report Tuesday on the troubling effects of inflation on low and middle-income families as well as small businesses.

Rand Paul releases report on rising inflation: ‘It’s only going to get worse’.https://t.co/Tms3Uz8uNj

— RLC (@RLibertyCaucus) January 19, 2022

Paul, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, blames the 7% spike in consumer prices – a 40-year high – on excessive coronavirus relief spending by Congress…

‘In recent months, prices on nearly everything from gas, food, and clothes to electricity, car prices, and rent, have all increased, and unfortunately it’s only going to get worse,’ Paul said in a statement released first to Fox News Digital. ‘Congress needs to realize that further spending at this time of rapidly rising prices is only going to continue the trend of rising prices on this nation’s already vulnerable businesses and families.”

Read the entire story.

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FEE’s Peter Jacobsen writes, “So, after ignoring inflation, saying it will just be ‘transitory,’ and saying inflation is no big deal, many are being forced to address it. Unfortunately, some of the suggested remedies are even more disappointing than the initial denial.

One ‘solution’ being put forward by the Biden Administration is that the government needs to enforce rules which keep markets from becoming monopolistic, known as ‘anti-trust’ laws.

The emerging claim that antitrust can combat inflation reflects “science denial”. There are many areas like transitory inflation where serious economists differ. Antitrust as an anti-inflation strategy is not one of them.

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) December 26, 2021

The logic goes something like this. Monopolies are able to charge higher prices, so stopping monopolies will stop prices from rising. If you don’t think too hard, this makes a superficial amount of sense. In reality, however, this is unlikely to work.

Lawrence Summers, an economist and former Treasury Secretary to Bill Clinton, equated the idea of using anti-trust to fight inflation with being ‘science denial.”

Read the entire column.

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Inflation is making this holiday season more expensive than ever. While the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to raise rates, Congress is also to blame. End the reckless spending.

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) December 23, 2021

Friendly reminder that if you were to climb Mount Everest and drop a billion dollars for every foot of elevation, you would fall short of our national debt.⁰#MountainOfDebt

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) December 22, 2021

The post Reckless spending is the reason for inflation this season appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Mises.org’s Daniel Lacalle writes, “Senator Elizabeth Warren recently stated that rising prices were due to corporations increasing their profits. ‘This isn’t about inflation, this is about price gouging for these guys.’ It is simply incorrect.

If evil corporations are to blame for rising prices in 2021, as Elizabeth Warren says, I imagine that they were magnanimous and generous corporations when there was low or no inflation, right? | @dlacalle_IAhttps://t.co/2BqkbgeifQ

— Mises Institute (@mises) December 20, 2021

No, corporations have not doubled their profits, and rising prices are not due to the evildoings of businesses. If evil corporations are to blame for rising prices in 2021, as Elizabeth Warren says, I imagine that they were magnanimous and generous corporations when there was low or no inflation, right?

Inflation is the tax of the poor. It destroys the purchasing power of wages and engulfs the little savings that workers accumulate. The rich can protect themselves by investing in real assets, real estate and financial, the poor cannot.

Inflation is not a coincidence, it is a policy.”

Read the entire column.

The post No, Elizabeth Warren, greed is not causing inflation appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Brad Polumbo writes, “The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania ran the numbers to analyze what American households will have to spend in 2021 to maintain the same living standard from 2020 or 2019. Their analysis reports that ‘inflation in 2021 will require the average U.S. household to spend around $3,500 more in 2021 to achieve the same level of consumption of goods and services as in recent previous years.’

The Wharton School of Business found that “inflation in 2021 will require the average U.S. household to spend around $3,500 more.”

You don’t need to be an Ivy League economist to see why that’s such an outrage.

By @brad_polumbo https://t.co/4m27a7QLFd

— FEE (@feeonline) December 16, 2021

That’s right: Thanks to the ongoing price inflation, families basically just got $3,500 poorer. The Wharton analysis also notes that lower-income households will be hit even harder by these price increases than higher-earning families, because lower-income families tend to spend relatively more of their money on particular goods that have seen the heaviest price hikes.

As families across the country are realizing, inflation is not just some abstract economic phenomenon. It hurts the finances of struggling Americans and makes it harder for families to put food on the table. But there’s another element of this that the public needs to remember: Today’s inflation is ultimately rooted in government policy choices.”

Read the entire column.

The post Inflation will cost the average household an extra $3,500 or more in 2021 appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Nathan J. Richendollar writes, “President Joe Biden once bizarrely remarked on the 2020 campaign trail, ‘Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.’ It shows.

Earlier this month, the Labor Department reported that the CPI rose at its fastest rate since 1990: 0.9 percent for the month of October and 6.2 percent year over year—faster than Wall Street consensus estimates of 0.6 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively.

Inflation isn’t slowing down. It’s picking up speed again. https://t.co/HYbSds7GyP

— FEE (@feeonline) November 26, 2021

Perhaps most telling, the acceleration in prices still clocks in at 0.6 percent monthly when the volatile food and energy categories are excluded, suggesting inflation is here to stay. Astute observers might notice that the 0.9 percent monthly change in CPI represents faster inflation than earlier this year, and that if current trends continued for one year, next October’s annual price increase would be 10.8 percent. These figures, quite frankly, obliterate any notion that our inflation is ‘transitory’ or trivial. In response, the president declared inflation his ‘top priority.’ Judging by the administration’s economic agenda, this only spells more trouble.”

Read the entire column.

The post They said inflation would be ‘transitory.’ The data say something different. appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Jon Miltimore writes, “Inflation has been in the news a lot lately. The massive money pumping the Federal Reserve began in 2020 has finally got people’s attention, and is no longer a topic for just economists and free market advocates.

CNN last week reported that price increases recently hit a three-decade high and 25 percent of Americans say their standard of living has fallen. Speaking on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box,’ Home Depot founder Ken Langone noted that ‘inflation is a regressive tax [that] hits poor people hardest.’ On CNBC’s sister network, MSNBC, host Joy Reid noted that ‘unless you’ve been living under a rock your money isn’t going as far as it used to, with higher prices on gas, food and your energy bills…’

History teaches us something important about inflation: it can spiral out of control just that fast.https://t.co/EbqHyCZP2c

— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) November 24, 2021

Most people understand what inflation is, but in case you don’t, let’s define it. Inflation is essentially an increase in the supply of money. That’s basically it, and this was the standard definition of inflation for centuries, economist Joseph Salerno notes. Economists later added a second definition describing inflation as ‘a general and sustained increase in prices.’

Polls show Americans are quite worried about these ‘sustained price increases.’ As FiveThirtyEight recently observed, some surveys show 87 percent of registered voters are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned about inflation.”

Read the entire column.

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FEE’s Brad Polumbo writes,”In a recent MSNBC appearance, the progressive senator from Massachusetts argued that gas prices are rising not because of government-fueled inflation but simply due to corporate greed by oil companies like Chevron and Exxon.

‘We know exactly what the oil companies pay attention to, what is their main number one priority: profit,’ she said. ‘If this were just ordinary inflation, we might see prices go up. But prices at the pump have gone up, why? Well, let me give you a hint: Chevron, Exxon have doubled their profits.’

‘This isn’t about inflation… this is about price-gouging,’ the senator claimed during an MSNBC interview. https://t.co/ktqUdc79CN

— FEE (@feeonline) November 23, 2021

‘This isn’t about inflation… this is about price-gouging for these guys,’ Warren continued. ‘When we see prices go up we’re all concerned, and the Republicans want to come in and just try to hammer on one thing about this economy. But we’ve got to pay attention to the fact that folks like the oil companies say this is just another opportunity to make profits, and we need to call them out on that.’

Senator Warren’s attempt to pin the blame for rising gas prices on corporate greed makes little sense. Are companies ‘greedy’ in the sense that they’re focused on increasing profits? Yes, absolutely. (Although that’s not actually a bad thing). But it does not in any way explain the current increase in gas prices that is hurting Americans.

Chevron and Exxon are no more or less greedy or profit-focused than they were last year. Or the year before that. Or 20 years ago. There’s simply no reason to believe that they suddenly became extra greedy this year, or something.

Prices at the pump have gone up. Why? Because giant oil companies like @Chevron and @ExxonMobil enjoy doubling their profits. This isn’t about inflation. This is about price gouging for these guys & we need to call them out. pic.twitter.com/kxiQkC2tYa

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 20, 2021

So, too, are we supposed to believe that gas companies are uniquely greedy or especially profit-obsessed?…

The true causes of high gas prices are complicated, and ultimately, prices are set by supply and demand—not by the whims of individual companies.”

Read the entire column.

The post Elizabeth Warren just blamed high gas prices on corporate greed. Here’s why that doesn’t make any sense appeared first on Liberty Tree.